Munich Signature (51 page)

Murphy put his hand on hers. “Eve must have asked Adam the same question.”

“And how did he answer?” She punctuated the question with a lingering kiss.

“Nothing hurts anymore,” Murphy replied, his lips still close to hers. “Not as long as you are near. Nothing hurts.”

***

Maria could hardly repeat the message Captain Burton presented to her that morning. The paper fluttered in her hand as she held it up to Klaus.

“Please,” she whispered as the girls gathered around her and the baby in concern.

Klaus cleared his throat.

“Bubbe?” squeaked Trudy. “She is coming
here
, Mama?”

They all turned to gape at Captain Burton, who could only smile and shrug. “Trump has a reputation for getting his way.”

“So does Bubbe Rosenfelt.” Klaus grinned and reached down to touch the cheek of his nursing son. “Well, little Israel, what do you think? You are about to become an international incident.”

Captain Burton laughed. No one had ever seen him laugh before. He nodded slightly toward Maria. “If we are to have guests, perhaps I should tell the rest of the passengers. They may wish to plan something special for the occasion.”

***

“Of course it is possible!” Shimon almost shouted to the dozen men who sat beside him near the anchor chain.

“Well, something certainly must be done in honor of such an occasion,” agreed a middle-aged ex-bank clerk named Fredrik, who seldom agreed with anything at all.

The rabbi of Nuremberg nodded in approval. “They say the choir in the Temple sang entirely without instruments,
nu
? What do they call that, Shimon?”

“A cappella,” Shimon answered. “The Vienna Boys’ Choir sings all the time in the great cathedral of St. Stephan’s. Beautiful.
Beautiful!
”

“You have heard this?” asked the rabbi. “In a cathedral?”

“He is a musician,” Aaron defended. “Sometimes they have to go into such places to listen to or play music.”

“Well, then,” the rabbi concluded, “if those goyim boys can perform this in such a place as St. Stephan’s, why can we not do the same in honor of the child’s circumcision?” His lower lip protruded slightly. “The Eternal, blessed be He, has given the Holbeins a son after the loss of their little one. And now this son is to be circumcised and named
Israel
!
Oy
! Such blessing! A little prince of God has come to our ship of suffering!”

“Well, then,” said the bank clerk, “what symphony shall we perform for our little Israel?”

“Schubert!” cried Aaron. “A Jewish composer,
ja
?”

Shimon furrowed his brow in thought and shook his head. “I will tell you something. In Germany, the prison where we have come from, it is not lawful for a Jew to sing or play anything except what is written by Jewish composers. I myself saw a fellow beaten to death because he hummed a few bars of
Beethoven’s Fifth
.” He demonstrated. “
Bah-Bah-Bah Baaaaaaaah!
Just like that, he was dead. So all the time when I am shoveling coal into their furnaces like a man caught in hell, my mind is singing over and over again. I am quietly dreaming of all the music I used to play and listen to and hum!
Now
I say . . . we are free men, free to roam all over this ocean and free to sing whatever we wish to sing. And my heart can
shout
Beethoven’s Fifth
, and they cannot stop me.”

The bank clerk disagreed. “Too severe. The
Fifth
is too . . . noisy for a circumcision! We will have little Israel squawking like a cat with his tail in a door.”

“No, no, no,” Shimon corrected. “Not the
first
movement.”

“Listen to Shimon. He is from Vienna!” said the rabbi.

“Yes. Our maestro from the Musikverein,
ja
?” Aaron chuckled, and the fellows in his work crew joined him in an infectious laughter. They would become an orchestra—bass fiddle and oboe and violin and tympani and cello would soon come from their throats. Such joy, and all for little Israel!

“Yes!” The rabbi of Nuremberg was also laughing. Others came around and they laughed, too, although they were not quite certain what they were laughing at. “Shimon is the maestro! If he has Beethoven swimming in his brain, then it is time we rescue poor Beethoven!”

And so the matter was settled. “All right, then, we will perform the second movement of Beethoven’s
Fifth Symphony
!
Andante con moto!
It is perfect for our little prince Israel! Probably it was performed in Solomon’s Temple, Rabbi! And Beethoven found the old score and copied it!”

“Don’t tell the Nazis!” hooted Aaron.

“Well, good music is good music,” said the rabbi. “And the Eternal, blessed be He forever, will enjoy our concert also, even if the composer was not a Jew!”

***

Elisa’s report that Leah had arrived safely in Paris lifted yet one more pain from Murphy’s heart. He would wire Charles in New York. He would tell him his brother was safe, and that he and Elisa had spent three days in Snow White’s cottage like in the movie!

The timbers of the cottage had been hewn and shaped by hand some time before the Spanish Armada had been demolished by the ships of Elizabeth’s Navy. The ceiling was low enough that Murphy had to duck his head as he walked across the room. Everything looked like a Beatrix Potter painting inside. Cups hung in an open sideboard. Plates were lined up on a plate rail. The sink had a hand pump for water. A wood cookstove provided warmth for heating the teakettle and cooking meals with the ample supply of canned goods Tedrick had provided. There were apples and wine and an assortment of breads and pastries to last them three days or longer, even if they did not take a breath between bites. Perhaps a yeoman farmer had built this place before the Tudors ruled England. Generations of gamekeepers had lived here, protecting the red deer against poachers.

There were carpets of primroses and bluebells just beyond the first stand of trees. Hazy sunlight dappled the branches and gave each color a thousand varied shades.

Murphy dried the breakfast dishes as Elisa washed. It had been a Beatrix Potter sort of breakfast, too—coddled eggs and melon and black bread with unsalted butter. Elisa hummed as she rinsed the plates. She looked out the window over the sink. The light bathed her with gold and shades of blue from the flowers. Such beauty made Murphy’s heart ache with the joy of it. He had seen her in sequins at a castle; he had marveled at her in the footlights; he had reeled at the moonglow on her ivory skin, but here, in this plain place, yet another dimension was added to his love for her.

After a time she looked up, surprised at his quizzical smile. “What?” she asked, blushing.

“I was just thinking. . . .” He touched her cheek lightly. “I used to wonder how I could take you away from all the glamour of your life. You know, how could I ask you to go back to a farm in Pennsylvania—”

“And now?” Her hands immersed in dishwater, she waited, unmoving, for his answer.

He kissed her gently. “I think you’ll do fine.”

He drew back and still she did not move. Her eyes closed, she stood dreaming of all the things he had told her about through the night. “If only we could be there now,” she whispered at last. And when she opened her eyes, they were filled with tears.

Murphy laughed lightly. “Well, you’re the one who wanted to play for the BBC,” he said, and instantly their peace was shattered.

Elisa did not answer. She did not dare reply. Mechanically, she turned back to her task.

“Well, didn’t you?” Murphy asked a little more harshly this time. Her lack of response somehow irritated him. “It could have been just like this, you know. We would have gone on to Pennsylvania, and—”

Her eyes flashed angrily at him. She thrust a plate into his hands. “Did you come here to fight with me? If you knew—” She stopped short. Any more of this and she would answer his challenge with the truth. She could not do that. She would not.

“And I can say the same to you—if you knew what I have been going through with you over here and me over there. The nights without you. And little Charles! The poor boy has had to put up with me all the time. What do I know about kids? If it hadn’t been for Bubbe Rosenfelt—”

Elisa was crying. Angry at Murphy for not knowing, and angry at herself because she could not tell him! “What do you want from me, Murphy, what? It’s done now. Finished! We have been together less than twelve hours, and we’re fighting!” With that, she stormed from the house and retreated down a footpath blending into the shadows as Murphy watched miserably from the doorway.

He banged his head on a timber. “Right, Murphy. Really nice. Really bright. You’re a swell guy, Murphy,” he chided himself as he sank into a rocking chair beside the cheerless hearth.

***

What must have been a roaring stream in the spring was now only a trickle. Elisa sat on a stone beside a little pool where stranded guppies hoped for rain. The weight of all the world beyond New Forest rested heavily on her.

If only Murphy knew. She had been forced to miss the ship, bullied and ordered and coaxed and coached. If only Murphy knew. She had even been taught how to use a gun. What would he say if he knew all this? If he found out she had gone back to Paris and had met Thomas again?

But of course Murphy could not know. Not now. And if the Gestapo caught up with her, maybe he would never know the full truth. For now, until her family was safely out of the path of danger, she dared not tell him. Tedrick would bring the passports. Murphy would carry them to Prague for her. Czechoslovakia would stand or fall, and then she could tell him.

Tedrick
, she thought,
is very polite in his blackmail. He held my family hostage by simply threatening that they could not get away. He held no gun to their heads like the Nazis. His way was civilized and urbane. He used his power without conscience, but at least he had no blood on his hands. Not directly, anyway.

Her only consolation was the hope that she might really be doing something to help. Certainly Thomas had been grateful to see her, anxious to tell her everything.

If she had not fallen in love with Murphy, this would all seem right and easy. But she was in love—
one flesh
; not being able to tell him everything was a cold, sharp blade between them.

Elisa gazed heavenward through the fluttering leaves. “Tell me what I should do,” she prayed. But there was no answer. No answer. Only silence in her heart. The knife remained painful in her as she walked back to the cottage

Murphy had finished the dishes. He looked up when her shadow crossed the floor in front of his chair. Neither of them spoke for a long time. She walked toward him and sat down on the floor, laying her head against his knee. He touched her head gently.

“Forgive me?” he whispered. “You must have had a reason.”

Thank you, Lord, that he didn’t ask
. “You know I would have gone. I would not have stayed here for anything without you. It just
happened
. Forgive me, Murphy.”

“No more about it, huh?” He pulled her up until she sat in his lap like a little girl. “We have three days now in Snow White’s cottage.” She looked puzzled and he laughed. “I forgot you haven’t seen the movie. It’s all the rage in New York. I took Charles to see it, and—”

Murphy rattled on as if no harsh words had ever been spoken. Bit by bit he told her the details of everything that had happened in New York, from the wonder of Times Square to the arrival of the
Darien
and the death of the little girl. And then he spoke of his hope for those people and the importance of the Evian Conference next week.

The dam of his silence had broken, and he hardly noticed that Elisa had no real news to tell him—no concerts to report or trips shopping. She listened to him silently, wishing she could have been part of it all.

Later they walked hand in hand back to the stranded pool where the stream had been. They made love on a blanket beneath the trees and he quoted Song of Songs to her again, “This is my beloved, and this is my friend.”

If only you knew,
she thought.
Oh, darling, if only you could know!

34

United Voices

The sun beat down on their heads as men and women lined up to try out for the
Darien
Symphony Orchestra. An entire orchestra was required to play Beethoven’s
Symphony No. 5 in C minor, op. 67.
Of course, only the second movement would be performed, but who could know what occasion they might have to perform yet another symphony?

Those with the quality of strings in their voices were selected in groups of first and second violin, viola, cello, and bass fiddle. Brass and woodwinds were also divided into groups, and then Shimon spent an hour with each group alone in the bow daily as he rehearsed their parts.

“How does he know all this?” asked Aaron’s younger companion, who was a cello.

“He played the kettledrums,” Aaron the oboe explained with authority. “He learned everyone’s parts while he waited for his turn to play.”

So great was the response at the auditions that Shimon doubled the size of the orchestra. When others came and asked to join, he discarded the thought that the orchestra must be a certain number of this or that. In the end he had fifty-seven cellos. Fifty-nine first and second violins, and so on. Those who were passable musicians themselves became first and second chair and coaches who helped rehearse the passages and the particular sound of each vocal instrument. Morning, noon, and night the 214 members of the
Darien
Symphony Orchestra could be heard humming their parts as they worked, stood in the dinner line, washed dishes, or cleaned latrines. At night as the hammocks swung easily in the dark holds, the cacophony of unmatched notes competed with the sounds of the engine and the groaning hull. Nothing at all seemed to fit together. Each part was different. Each instrument had a different sound. Each musician hummed the part with a little different shading.